Day of Projects

Today was a day to get things done.  And I did!

I hung the first of two bike hangers on the back porch.  This gets my bike out of our laundry/pantry area.  We have plans to also hang Matt’s bike from above.  But the ladder in combination with my height was not tall enough to do that project, so that will have to wait until Matt is home.

This picture shows off what part of the paint job didn’t get done.  This summer, when they repainted our house, they did not paint the surrounds around the doors, or the doors.  I’ve got it on the project list, but I don’t know if it will ever get done because I hate painting.  Also because anything with doors means leaving the doors open until the paint dries. Which is more complicated with the cats.

The new bike changes the view from my desk. 

Now I just have to put the pantry in order.

I took this octopus hanger out of the closet and put it closer to the washer.  I will hang my washcloths from it.

Our kitchen light wasn’t working.  We were down to one working light in the fixture.  Time for a new kitchen light.

This is not the best picture, but here is the new fixture I installed.  I love that it has LED lights, so we don’t have to change them.  We also gained a light with the new fixture.  (Four instead of three.)

In the fashion of all projects, there was a trip to the hardware store.  I enjoyed coming across this truck, with an improvised–yet decorated–tailgate.

The same truck also had this improvised locking system.
It was a good day of projects.

Date: Portland City Walk. But in Vancouver.

For our date, Matt and I did one of the walks in the delightful book Portland City Walks by Laura O. Foster.  We did the walk that is not a Portland walk at all, but a Vancouver walk.  It was a beautiful–if cold and windy–day.

On the way there.  Traffic.

Crossing into Washington.

This building at Historic Fort Vancouver was decorated for the holidays.  It is available for rent for weddings and parties.

Gorgeous house, Fort Vancouver.

That’s Marshall of the Marshall Plan. He spent time at Fort Vancouver.

View of the I-5 bridge.

Matt, standing in downtown Vancouver’s Sculpture Garden.  I had no idea downtown Vancouver had a sculpture garden.

Pretty church, all dressed up for the holiday.

I liked the brickwork patterns used to block off the former windows.

A mural of old time-y downtown Vancouver.

Palm tree!  Sparkly stucco house!  Red trim!  Very exciting!
After this picture, it became dark very rapidly.  It was a good walk.

Walking from the #4 to lunch

I had a lunch date and took the #4, then walked through the Mississippi neighborhood to get to my destination.  Here are two things I saw.

There was a period in American home ownership, when reusing pipes as boarders/fences/rails was a thing.  Here is a nice example.  My grandfather also reused pipes for handrails.

I love the sliding nature of this fence. It’s not tipping over.  Rather, the slats were the slightest bit off, and then kept getting worse and worse.  There’s a story behind the creation of this fence.

Song of the month December 2016

Waste a Moment–Kings of Leon

Hoo-boy this song is all over the radio this month.  I like it, and because I’m usually driving when I’m listening to music on the radio, I can’t Shazaam songs.  So I do my best to remember a line or two and then google later.  The line I chose to remember was “she’s a live wire.”  This isn’t even the correct lyric, it’s “HE’S a live wire.”  But it didn’t work to google it, because you have no idea how many songs have the phrase “live wire” in them.  It’s enough that someone has complied a list.  I had to wait to hear the song again and try for a different phrase.

Video=film school attempt at deep meaning

All We Ever Knew–The Head and the Heart

Aside from the fact that there are three separate parts to this song (intro, regular part, super cool break) I just love how earnest this is.  The super cool break (feeling low, feeling high, feeling down, why isn’t this enough?) feels like 70s soft rock in all the right ways.  It’s also a sad song that sounds happy, which is an 80s thing I always enjoy encountering.

The video includes the classic tropes of “band plays in a cool location” interspersed with lots of slow-mo (walking, throwing feathers from a pillow, etc.)

#52MoviesbyWomen goal complete!

In 2016 I set out to watch 52 films written or directed by women.  I have completed that goal.

Here’s my list:  https://letterboxd.com/stenaros/list/52-films-by-women/

What I learned:

While it’s fairly normal for male directors to write and direct films, it’s rare for a woman director to do so.

When male directors have hits at Sundance, they often get distribution and three-picture deals.  Women, not so much.  Example: the 12 year gap between Kelly Reichardt’s Sundance-lauded River of Grass (1994) and Old Joy (2006), her first feature film

The filmography for male directors over a 10-20 year span tends to have a movie every year or so.  The filmography for women directors tends to have a movie every four or five years (or more).  The gaps tend to be filled in by guest directing television shows.

The best thing you can do to support women directors is to go see their movies in the theater on opening weekend, because box office returns drive so much in the industry.  Might I suggest the Woman and Hollywood weekly email list?

Even if you have a box office hit (Catherine Hardwicke’s Twlight) it’s likely to be discounted.

Favorite Directors and films:

Forgotten Director:  Elaine May.

Most famous for her bomb Ishtar (which I think is funnier that most people give it credit for), she did great work in the 70s with the darkly funny A New Leaf. Her film The Heartbreak Kid anticipated the “uncomfortable humor” seen on shows such as The Office by several decades.  (There’s a remake of the Heartbreak Kid with Ben Stiller that I do not recommend)

Woman who I wish would direct a movie every year:  Gina Prince-Bythewood

Love and Basketball is a sports movie without the big game.  Beyond the Lights shows the tradeoffs made for fame.  Both focus on relationships and shifting loyalties.

Rock Star Director:  Catherine Hardwicke

Her movies go full-tilt, while also managing to break your heart.  Thirteen (co-written with an actual 13-year-old girl) is bright and horrifying, Lords of Dogtown is full of amazing 70s-skater period detail and humanity, Miss You Already tells a friendship and cancer story that I don’t usually see.

Best Micro/Macro Director: Mira Nair

She can zoom out for flamboyant set pieces and zoom in for interpersonal exchanges.  Her Vanity Fair is bright, not stodgy.  Her Monsoon Wedding is modern, traditional and full of love.

Director as Artist:  Julie Taymore

I watched nothing by her this year because I’ve already seen everything she’s directed.  She got her start in the theater (if you’ve marveled over the costumes in the Broadway production of the Lion King, you’ve seen her work) and her movies are like moving works of art.  Across the Universe was heartily embraced by teenage girls–and thus dismissed by a lot of people—who fell for the way she brought Beatles songs to life.  Frida was the best homage the artist could have asked for.

The Quiet One: Kelly Reichardt.

I’m guessing the scripts for her films are a fraction of the average because most of her movies don’t have much talking.  But she gets her actors to get so much across without the words.  Old Joy is the story of male friends grown apart, set in the woods around Portland (Bagby Hot Springs makes an appearance).  Meek’s Cutoff is a different kind of Oregon Trail story.  Night Moves is an environmental activist story from the people perspective, not the ideological perspective.

I’m thankful I undertook this project.  I watched a lot of good movies I wouldn’t have otherwise.  In the future, I will endeavor to prioritize movies made by women.